A/N: Again, the support is lovely. Thank you guys so much!
Chapter 2
"Here ar' ya duties, boy." The list was long and the days would be tiring, but the previous evening with Lady Stark had brought back old memories of his brother. Death is so final, while life is full of possibilities. A prisoner - a slave - he may be, but at the very least he was a slave with a pulse. As the kennel master droned on, Jaime surveyed the ruins that were once Winterfell, home of the descendants of Brandon the Builder. They certainly could use him now. Of the stone walls that survived the fires and pillaging, few were without fundamental damage to the very foundations that made it sturdy in the storm. One didn't have to actually be a builder to note that the deep, long fingers of cracks bode poorly for the workers.
The Stark girl had escaped the grasps of his family and Littlefinger just to be the Lady of a large pile of rubble.
"Are you listenin' to me, boy? Get'a work b'fore I squash ya like a fly!" The man couldn't have been more than fifteen years his senior, yet he had the hardened demeanor of a battle-hardened warrior. Jaime had seen countless men like him on the field, blinded by honor and loyalty, rushing eagerly to their graves. Yes, he suppose a man like him could call Jaime, with his fair hair and bright eyes 'boy' without a thought. He bent to pick up the brush awkwardly with his left hand. Certainly, he had basic knowledge in caring for horses. He was quite fond of the beasts in his youth and spent his days harassing the stable boys. Since he left behind his days as a squire and progressed into knighthood, however, these duties always fell to someone else. He may be adapting to swinging his sword brashly with his left arm, but delicate tasks such as brushing down a horse's coat still required adjustments.
His stump was bare for the world to see as he leaned it against the chestnut mare to keep her still. She was a scraggly little thing with patches of hair missing at her rear thigh. Had this horse been presented to his lord father at Casterly Rock, not only would she have been made into stew but the gifter would be punished as well for dishonoring the Lannister house with such a sight. Even as the long winter began to draw back from the coming tides of summer, however, the people of the north remember the darkness and the cold. Those who lost everything once holds even the littlest of nothing dear.
They weren't entirely without humor though, at least not at the expense of their walking joke. Every time he slipped from his stump or miscalculated the damned animal's movements, there were snickers and whispers in the shadows. The only comfort he took was that his father wasn't around to bear witness to the ridicule. Surely, he would have been punished for his shortcomings.
He cursed as he struggled to maneuver the water pump while holding onto the wooden stein. At least with the golden hand, useless as it was, he could have rested something on the palm of the damned thing. Finally, he set the stein on the floor, carefully aiming the spout at the small opening.
He looked up to find Lady Stark turn away from a window in her tower. The flush of embarrassment that had rested beneath his cheek blossomed into his chest. He swallowed his curses with his water and returned to work.
Surprisingly, evening meals were a joyous affair. The food was plain at best, the watery stew and bland meat pies filled bellies and was plentiful to replenish the day's work. The ale, however, was exceptional, warming the frozen finger tips and rushing blood through frozen veins. Dorne may have its sweet wine, suitable for his late sister and brother, but any weathered knight would choose a good, rich beer that brought the deep, thunderous laughter from deep within the core of men.
Even at his lonely end of the table, he couldn't help the smirk at the dirty jokes and ensuing laughter.
The rest of the men generally avoided him. Of course, no one was quite so stupid as to put a sword in his hand (although, what good would that do against dragons) and the shackles around his ankles made for loud and clumsy movements. Most of them, however, were still brought up with the tale of the Kingslayer. None of them trusted him enough to turn their backs to him.
It was a fortnight before anyone spoke to him.
"And how many women have you had, boy?" It was Aric, the man who had given him his chores during his second day in Winterfell. "A pretty face like yours, you prob'ly had all the bitches pantin' after ya." Years of being close to animals have made it impossible for Aric to hold a conversation without bringing up some sort of beast, big or small.
Never in his life had any man spoken to the former heir to Casterly Rock in such a manner. Not even his own brother. A second man chimed in, sliding closer to him on one of the long benches that lined the mess hall. "C'mon, Lannister. You've got to have plenty of stories. You got to have all the women without ever having to worry about taking a wife. All you've got to say was you was servin' the king."
He thought of Cersei just then, the first time he had in a long time. Her long blonde hair, beautiful green eyes, the way her lips curled in displeasure when he cursed during their lovemaking. And then he thought of the blood, the slaughtered bastard babe, the moment he wondered how he had ever loved her. "No one worth mentioning."
A filthy hand clasped his shoulder. They were all filthy. "Ah, to have so many that you can't even remember them all. There was this one girl I had on my nineteenth nameday..."
The tale involved a girl, black of hair, who had been so frightened by the man's cock that she fled the room, naked as the day she was born. The boy, Walter, was bawdy and indecent in his telling and Jaime found himself listening to the strange sound of his own chuckle. Walt reminded him of a squire in King's Landing, who once laughed so hard at his own jest that he fell into a mount of fresh horse shit. Cersei exiled him for two weeks until the stench wore off. At the recollection, Jaime managed a laugh. The sudden burst of air from his lungs that he hadn't experienced since just before his confession to his brother hurt his chest in surprise, but he welcomed the ache.
It was in the hall of winter that the fires from the Mad King's reign ceased its raging in his heart.